Trump administration sides with cake baker in gay wedding legal fight

The Trump Administration is siding against gay rights advocates in a high-profile Supreme Court showdown over whether religious business owners can decline to provide products and services for gay weddings.

The Justice Department filed an amicus brief Thursday arguing that the State of Colorado violated the First Amendment free expression rights of Masterpiece Bakeshop owner Jack Phillips when it cited him for discrimination for refusing to bake a wedding cake for gay couple Charlie Craig and David Mullins.

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"When Phillips designs and creates a custom wedding cake, there is no clear line between his speech and his clients’. He is not merely tolerating someone else’s message on his property; he is giving effect to their message by crafting a unique product with his own two hands," acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall and other lawyers wrote. "Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights."

The amicus brief argues that state governments and the federal government can require individuals and businesses not to discriminate in the provision of services like rental of hotel ballrooms or in sale of "pre-made or off-the-shelf products." However, the Justice Department says the Constitution prohibits the government from requiring "the creation of commissioned goods or the provision of commissioned services that are inherently communicative."

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the administration is seeking to vindicate important free speech rights.

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“The Department filed an amicus brief in this case today because the First Amendment protects the right of free expression for all Americans," Justice spokeswoman Lauren Ehrsam said in a statement. "Although public-accommodations laws serve important purposes, they—like other laws—must yield to the individual freedoms that the First Amendment guarantees. That includes the freedom not to create expression for ceremonies that violate one’s religious beliefs.”

The Justice Department's stance in the case comes as no surprise. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, while serving in the Senate, repeatedly opposed efforts in Congress to expand protections for LGBT rights.

In late July, Justice Department attorneys filed a brief with a federal appeals court in New York arguing that federal law does not prevent employers from discriminating against workers or job applicants because they are LGBT. The position conflicts with the stand the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took in the same legal case.

Earlier that month, Sessions gave a closed-door speech to a religious freedom summit in Orange County, Calif. sponsored by the socially-conservative legal advocacy group representing Phillips—the Alliance Defending Freedom. Both the group and the Justice Department declined to release his remarks.

The Supreme Court agreed in June to hear the wedding-cake case in the term beginning next month. Oral arguments have not yet been scheduled.